


take my hand (let's take a dive)

by alpacasandravens



Category: X-Men (Alternate Timeline Movies)
Genre: Asexual Erik Lehnsherr, Charles Xavier Always Says the Absolute Worst Thing He Could Possibly Say, First Kiss, Fluff and Angst, Getting Together, Happy Ending, M/M, Mutant Politics, X-Men: First Class (2011)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-12
Updated: 2020-05-12
Packaged: 2021-03-03 03:21:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,766
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24138055
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alpacasandravens/pseuds/alpacasandravens
Summary: “When I asked if you wanted to get out of there, that wasn’t just a line.”“I assumed as much.”“Did you want to?”Charles was looking at him so openly. He’s so vulnerable, and this is exactly why Erik didn’t want to have this conversation. Because he will have sex, but he’d rather not, and there wasn’t a way he could think of to let Charles down without something in their relationship irrevocably changing.“I didn’t,” he said finally. And then, because he could see the disappointment on Charles’s face, “but I would have liked to kiss you.”
Relationships: Erik Lehnsherr/Charles Xavier
Comments: 18
Kudos: 129





	take my hand (let's take a dive)

**Author's Note:**

> i'm asexual and i can project onto whatever character i want
> 
> au where there was never a division x headquarters at langley and they all just go to westchester immediately. this means armando isn't dead and angel didn't join shaw.  
> note: there is a line in here where it implies that people have to have had sex to know they don't like it, and though it's just a implication, please know that is not true!! beliefs/assumptions of the character do not match the beliefs of the author!!! also since the fic is set during first class, which is in 1962, to the best of my knowledge the word asexual wasn't in widespread use at that time and so it's not something erik knows.
> 
> There is now a translation into Chinese available [here](https://tophanzhan.lofter.com/post/1f5ecc39_1c98e4c24)!!

Charles’s optimism was intoxicating. Stupid, but enticing nonetheless. From the first moment Charles’s mind had wrapped around his in that Florida water, that sense of hope and belief had been there, threaded through his mind, and Erik couldn’t decide whether or not to look down on him for it. 

That was one of the reasons he stayed. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he hoped that Charles’s optimism came from a well-founded knowledge of humanity. Now that it had been over a month, he knew it simply came from naivete. Their road trip across the United States to recruit mutants had convinced Erik of that. It was only the young ones, the ones with nowhere else to go, that joined up with them, and Erik couldn’t blame them. There were two reasons, in his mind, that someone would believe Charles: they hadn’t seen enough of the world to know better, or they were in such dire straits that his perpetual hope functioned as a sort of drug. Though he hated to admit it, Erik knew he was no different.

They had been on the road for three weeks, and Erik found himself growing closer to Charles. That didn’t mean he bought into Charles’s utopian vision for human-mutant assimilation, he’d seen too much of the world to ever truly believe in that. But it did mean that Charles never fully drew out of Erik’s mind, and he thought something would be missing if that ever were to happen. They progressed from sitting awkwardly next to each other on Greyhound buses to debating to quietly discussing nothing while Charles leaned his head on Erik’s shoulder and both of them mentally cursed the road’s frequent potholes. 

“What’s next for you?” Charles asked one night as they leaned against the walkway railing outside their motel room on the outskirts of Kansas City. The sun had already set and the night was cold. 

“You’re the one with the list.” 

Charles frowned.  _ You know that’s not what I mean _ , he projected.

_ Then you already know the answer _ , Erik thought back. He still wasn’t great at projecting his thoughts, but he’d been practicing. 

“You don’t see any future for yourself after that?”  _ After Shaw _ , Charles didn’t say, but they both knew what he meant. 

Erik shrugged. “What is there to see?” This time was a brief respite, a short break before he could complete his life’s mission. What happened after that, whether there even was an after that, didn’t matter at all. 

“There’s more to life than revenge, my friend.”

Erik did not believe this, and let Charles feel his doubt. 

“There is,” Charles insisted. “Much as there are more emotions to feel than anger.”  _ Please don’t let the past stop you from finding happiness. _

_ Killing Shaw is my happiness. _ “It’s cold,” Erik said abruptly. He retreated to the motel room, but didn’t block Charles out of his mind.

***

Strip clubs were not Erik’s favorite place. He had been inside a fair number of them, as apparently Shaw wasn’t the only person who used them as a base of operations. And that made sense, he thought, as the environment was likely to distract anyone who might have otherwise seen their illicit activities. But that didn’t mean Erik liked the places. 

This strip club visit was only tangentially related to Shaw. Cerebro had located a mutant who worked here, an upscale-looking place in southern Los Angeles. 

Charles’s eyes darted all over the place, from a girl in scanty clothing to Erik to a girl whose breasts were almost falling out of her bra as a man stuffed money in it to Erik to the bartender to Erik. Erik was sure Charles’s eyes were on him more than half the time, and the weight behind his gaze didn’t change between looking at a dancer’s ass to Erik in his everyday clothes. 

“Do you see the mutant anywhere?” Erik asked.

Charles put his fingers to his temple and quickly scanned the room. “She’s over there.” He pointed to a shorter dancer with dark hair. Her backless shirt revealed dragonfly wing tattoos that stretched across her back and shoulders. She was also very clearly engaged with another customer.

“Should we get a drink while we wait?” Erik asked with a smile.

“I thought you’d never ask.”

Charles’ eyes leave Erik less and less the longer they stand by the bar. He’s gone through two drinks, not enough to make him anywhere close to drunk, but enough that he’s decided he doesn’t much care about inhibitions anymore. Charles is blatantly eyeing Erik, and Erik is starting to get uncomfortable.

“Don’t you dare use that ‘groovy mutation’ line on me, Charles,” Erik said jokingly, to relieve the tension. “It won’t work.”

“So you’re already aware your mutation is groovy?”

“Has that line ever worked for you? Do girls really fall for that?”

“Some guys do as well,” Charles said with a nod.

Erik raised his eyebrows. “Really.”

“Really.”

He didn’t want to lead Charles on when he wasn’t interested, but something compelled him to ask “And what do you say when that line doesn’t work?”

Charles lowered his voice. “Do you want to get out of here?”

There was something about hearing Charles say that, with his posh accent and fondness for cardigans, that Erik thought was extremely confusing and endearing. He didn’t want to get out of there, but he did very much want to kiss Charles senseless. 

“Work to do,” he said instead.

“Right.” Charles’s head seemed to settle back on his shoulders. “Angel should be free any second now.” 

Erik felt a lot lighter once Charles’s eyes were no longer on him, but he found himself missing the feeling too.

“A private show, huh?” Angel said when they approached her. “Follow me.”

When they were seated in the booth, Charles didn’t even pretend to be interested in the show she was offering. He projected a sharp feeling of amusement to Erik after he made their offer and floated the champagne bucket across the room.

_ Thanks, dear _ , he said in Erik’s head, and Erik thought the pet name was entirely too pleasant.

That train of thought abruptly ended when Angel’s tattoos unfurled and she lifted off the ground. 

“I should’ve known you weren’t interested in my services,” she said from her spot two feet above the floor. “The eye-fucking at the bar was on another level.”

“We were not-” Erik began.

“Save it,” Angel said. “What are you recruiting mutants for?” 

Charles explained, and she promised to join the cause.

They stay the night in a cheap motel room not too far away from Angel’s club. The place isn’t the best, and the walls are thin enough that they can hear the shouting from an argument in a room on the floor below, but it’s a place to sleep. 

Erik drops his small bag next to one bed, and Charles sits on the other. The bedspreads are an oppressive shade of orange that match the stripes on the walls. It’s all a bit much.

“So, what Angel said about us,” Charles said.

“Hm?” Erik very much did not want to have this conversation. If he had it his way, he would continue to live his life flirting with Charles and avoiding any serious conversations or feelings for as long as possible. Unfortunately, he knew that wasn’t going to happen.

“That we were… what did she say? Eye-fucking.”

Erik said nothing, hoping that Charles would drop it. Charles must have been able to sense Erik’s hesitance, he was a telepath after all. But he soldiered on regardless.

“I like you very much, Erik.”

“Okay.”

“When I asked if you wanted to get out of there, that wasn’t just a line.”

“I assumed as much.”

“Did you want to?”

Charles was looking at him so openly. He’s so vulnerable, and this is exactly why Erik didn’t want to have this conversation. Because he will have sex, but he’d rather not, and there wasn’t a way he could think of to let Charles down without something in their relationship irrevocably changing.

“I didn’t,” he said finally. And then, because he could see the disappointment on Charles’s face, “but I would have liked to kiss you.”

“You can now, if you want.” Shy isn’t a word Erik would have ever used to describe Charles, but he seemed almost shy now. 

And still, he can’t. “No.” He was surprised when he followed up the refusal with “I’m sorry.”

“Oh. Okay.” 

Several minutes later, Charles asked “Are you angry with me?” He projected  _ Did I do something wrong? _

“No,” Erik said. “No.”

They didn’t speak for the rest of the night.

The following day was tense. The next mutant Charles had located was on the other side of the city, but they’d quickly left when it became clear that the man, whose mutation seemed to be low-level telekinesis, had two toddlers and was under no circumstances interested in leaving them to join Charles’s team.

They ate dinner at a diner with several burnt-out lightbulbs and new Formica tables that were already sticky. There were three or four other occupied booths, but for the most part, the restaurant was empty. 

“Erik, what’s wrong?” Charles asked. 

“Nothing.”

“You’ve been tense all day. Are you-”

Erik cut him off. “I am fine, Charles.”

Their waiter, a girl who couldn’t have been more than 16, glanced between the two of them warily when she brought their food. Erik ate his eggs in silence.

Charles was still quiet back at their motel. It was getting on Erik’s nerves. He understood why Charles felt bad, he truly did, but he couldn’t help but be irritated that it was in response to him. 

“Would you stop tiptoeing around me?” Erik finally snapped. “Me not wanting to have sex with you is not the end of the world.”

“I didn’t mean to imply it was. I merely worried I might have overstepped.” 

Erik stared at the ceiling. “You didn’t overstep. I just don’t want to. It’s not a thing I do.” He didn’t mean to project it, but he was sure Charles heard how much he wanted things to go back to normal.

Charles was silent for a moment. “What do you mean it’s not a thing you do? Is that your way of saying you’re straight?”

Never before had Erik so regretted that Charles was the only person he couldn’t scare into submission. “No. I’m saying I’m not interested in sex.”

Really, Erik should have seen this coming. Charles had always had a habit of saying the worst possible thing he could say, and of course this would be no different.

“...You have had sex before, right?” Charles asked.

Erik hoped Charles could hear the wave of anger he projected in response to that question. “What would it matter if I hadn’t?” He sighed. He was in his late 20s and conventionally attractive. It would be suspicious if he hadn’t. Of course it mattered. “Yes. I have.”

“And you don’t want to do it again? I’ve had some bad sex before, but I can assure you it’s not all like that.” 

“You don’t make things easy, do you?” Erik glared at Charles.

“I apologize if that was the wrong thing to say. I just think-”

“Charles, to be frank, I do not care what you think. It’s my life, and you don’t have to understand it.”

Charles tried to apologize, but Erik couldn’t deal with anything else from him tonight. He put up his mental shields (shoddy, but strong enough Charles couldn’t hear him without deliberately deciding to bypass them) and stormed to the bathroom. Charles was still awake when he got out of the shower, but Erik ignored him, lying down with his back to Charles and closing his eyes.

They didn’t talk about it for the rest of the trip. They still presented a unified front to the mutants they were trying to recruit (though the recruiting didn’t go so well, their only success was Sean), but something was different. There was no casual flirting. Charles still looked at him differently than he did anyone else, but that look was more tinted with confusion than with affection. 

Erik, meanwhile, did his best to keep Charles out of his head. Things were ruined now, he thought, like he’d always known they would be. Still, he thought he’d be able to keep whatever he and Charles had until he killed Shaw. But Shaw was still alive, and Charles was distant, and Erik categorically refused to explain himself. 

He’d tried, after all. And all that had led to was Charles asking prying questions. So Charles could either accept him, or he could not, and Erik told himself he didn’t care either way. (He did care, quite a lot, and when Charles was asleep he allowed himself to miss the way things had been.)

“They’re going to think we’re fighting, when we go back,” Charles said on the last night of their trip. They were somewhere in Pennsylvania, standing at a bus station in the middle of the night. The bus would come in an hour and take them back to Westchester, but until then, the sun-cracked plastic bench or the gum-spattered sidewalk were their choices.

“They’re right.”

“Why are we fighting, Erik?” Charles sounded tired.

Erik did his best to not sound defensive. He did not succeed. “Because I told you something about myself and you didn’t take it well.”

“You told me something that confused me, and I tried to understand.” 

“Not everything is a science experiment, Charles. You can’t put me under a microscope to understand how I work.” 

“I’m sorry. That was not my intention.” Erik hated that he believed Charles.

Erik sighed. “I will try one more time. You will not talk, interrupt, or project anything into my head. All right?”

Charles nodded wordlessly.

“Good.” As he spoke he tried to project how angry he was that he even had to explain at all. Not in an attempt to make Charles feel bad, just to make him understand. “I’ve had sex with many people. It’s not something I enjoy or seek out, it was always as a means to an end. A way to access a weapon, a way to get closer to a target. It was necessary. It’s not something I would do otherwise. And I don’t appreciate you acting as though I’m strange because of it.”

True to his word, Charles didn’t say anything, but Erik could tell he wanted to.

“You can talk now, Charles. But don’t expect me to answer any unnecessary questions.”

Charles’s mouth hung open, clearly trying to decide what was a necessary question and what was merely to satisfy his own curiosity. Finally, he settled on “Thank you for letting me know.”

“You left me little choice. You’ve been weird about this for days.”

“I apologize. I also apologize if I ever made you uncomfortable.” 

“You didn’t.” That wasn’t strictly true, but saying that being perceived as sexually attractive was mildly uncomfortable when that wasn’t something Charles could control would not be productive.

If Charles could tell he wasn’t being entirely truthful, he didn’t let on. “Oh,” he said, a wide smile spreading across his face. “Good.”

The irritating part of this conversation taking place at a bus stop, Erik reflected, was his complete inability to get up and leave when he felt the conversation was over. He’d always left the room, and now he had no choice but to sit on the bench beside Charles in silence.

After several minutes, Charles opened his mouth to speak.

_ Do not ask me any intrusive questions _ , Erik projected forcefully.

Charles closed his mouth.

***

Raven picked them up from the bus station the next afternoon. She drove a vintage car that was likely worth more than everything Erik had ever owned combined. This was Erik’s first clue as to the extent of the Xaviers’ wealth.

“How was the road trip?” she asked. 

“Exhausting,” Charles said with a yawn. He had been asleep on the bus for nearly the entire last section of their trip.

“Successful?”

“Moderately,” Erik answered. 

Raven nodded in acknowledgement. “C’mon. From where I’m standing, it looks pretty successful.”

When they got to Charles’s house, Erik could see why. He could tell Charles did too; he felt a brief flash of wonder and warmth before Charles pulled back into himself.  _ You’re welcome in my mind _ , he projected, but Charles clearly wasn’t listening. 

“This place feels more alive than it ever did,” Charles responded to Erik’s raised eyebrow. 

Erik didn’t think the house seemed very alive. It was tall and cold, a visual manifestation of incredible wealth. Everything was manicured to perfection, and that careful precision seemed to sap the energy from the property. 

“Everyone’s inside. They know you’re coming back.” Raven was full of excitement, a broad smile on her face. 

That excitement was on nearly everyone else’s faces too. The mutants Charles and Erik had recruited gathered in a room Charles and Raven referred to as the front parlor, which was a pretentious name for a room if there ever was one. There were more than they expected, but given the amount of time they’d spent on the road, there weren’t many. Angel had come, as had Sean. Alex, the kid they’d broken out of prison, was there, and so were two others. 

“So,” Alex said. “Where do we start?”

Charles attempted to stifle his yawn, but ended up making it more noticeable. “I,” he said with as much dignity as he could muster, “am going to take a nap. In the morning, we will begin training you to control your powers.” 

Most of them had clearly been hoping for a more inspiring speech, or at the very least something to do.

“How long have you all been here?” Erik asked as Charles shuffled off to his bedroom. 

The answers all came at once. “A week.” “A month.” “A couple days.” “I live here, dumbass.” Most of them, it seemed, had arrived immediately after Charles and he had talked to them. 

“What have you been doing?”

“Hanging out, mostly,” Sean said. 

“Angel flew over the house and torched one of the bushes,” Raven said. “It was super cool.”

“After Alex cut that tree in half,” Angel said defensively. 

Erik briefly felt bad about the damage their team was doing to Charles’s house before reminding himself Charles could easily afford to have all the damage fixed. 

“How many of you think you have control over your powers?” Erik asked sharply. Raven’s hand went up, as did Angel and Armando’s. “You’re wrong. Tomorrow we’ll start learning control. Charles might have a lot of trust in the CIA and this task force, but this isn’t about that. It’s about you, and your mutations. Any questions?”

The same blank look of shock appeared on everyone’s face. 

“Good.”

“Well,  _ he’s _ intense,” Erik heard Sean say as he left the room. 

Erik didn’t care if the team liked him. It wasn’t his job to babysit while these kids messed around with their powers. They had to learn control, to be able to use their powers in any situation, because a threat could appear at any time. Keeping mutants safe was much more important than being liked. 

Of course, the kids weren’t the only ones learning control. Erik had to master his powers too. He’d almost drowned trying to pull that submarine back, he would have if Charles hadn’t saved him. He couldn’t afford any weakness when he faced Shaw. 

Everyone trained with Charles. This was presumably because he was the leader of the task force, which was either because he had the best control over his powers or he was the only member the CIA trusted. What this meant in practice was that he was almost always busy, going for a run with Hank or setting up the bunker for Alex to practice his aim or, one morning, holding a gun to Erik’s face and refusing to pull the trigger to let him deflect the bullet. 

“You need to test yourself,” he said, and Erik knew it was true. Moving the satellite dish that morning felt like he’d won. Like he was back in Florida and he’d been able to stop that submarine after all, only instead of killing Shaw he had Charles smiling at him in pure joy. He could feel it, too, Charles’s pride and happiness in the back of his head, and his chest had never felt so full. 

At night, after dinner and after Charles finished sweeping up Alex’s destroyed mannequins or putting out any fires Angel’s spit accidentally caused, Erik and Charles retreated to Charles’s study and played chess. They were both exhausted, but Erik had only commented on Charles’s tiredness once. His insistence that chess calmed his mind was enough for Erik acquiesce and play nearly every night. 

“The kids are coming along nicely,” Charles commented one day, about two weeks after they’d returned from their road trip. “Alex hasn’t blasted the wrong mannequin in three days, and Hank’s almost designed a suit so that Sean should be able to fly.”

“That’s good.”

“It is,” Charles agreed, smiling. “I’m very proud of them.”

“You’re starting to sound like a parent. Or a professor,” Erik said. Armando had started it, calling Charles ‘professor’ at first because he genuinely thought he was a teacher. Raven had found this hilarious, quickly told everyone that Charles had finished school less than six months ago, and then wholeheartedly adopted the nickname. 

“I suppose I am, somewhat. I’m certainly teaching them.”

Erik nodded. “What are we training them for? What does the CIA want with us?” This had long been a question of his. He knew why he was here - to kill Shaw. (And, more recently, because he’d found himself becoming a part of the community at the mansion, and he hated to think of leaving.) But he doubted the CIA, or Charles with all his pacifist ideology, wanted the same thing. 

“We all have our reasons. I suspect if you asked any one of our ‘team’, as they call it, they would say something different.” 

“What do  _ you _ want?”

Charles looked into Erik’s eyes, and he had never seemed so tired. “I want to prove that not all mutants are as evil as some people like to think.”

***

When Erik returned to his room after the game, Raven was in his bed. She wore her preferred skin, and her blond hair fell over her shoulder in a manner Erik assumed was meant to be seductive. The sheet was pulled over her body, but she was clearly naked. 

“What are you doing here, Raven?”

She looked nervous. “Do you want me?”

“No.” She immediately looked hurt, so Erik added “Maybe if you were older,” knowing that wouldn’t change anything. But she didn’t have telepathy like Charles, she wouldn’t know that wasn’t the reason.

A familiar ripple passed over Raven’s skin and her form shifted to the same body, but about ten years older. “Now?” she asked. 

“That’s not the real Raven.”

She shifted back into her preferred skin. 

“Neither is that,” Erik observed. 

“Fine,” she huffed. When he looked again, Raven lay in her natural skin, blue and slightly scaled, her red hair slick against her skull. “But you don’t want me like this either.”

“I don’t,” Erik admitted. “What is this about?”

Raven sighed. She sat up, pulling the sheet to cover her chest. “I’m ugly like this.” 

Erik sat on the edge of the bed. It should be awkward, seeing Raven in his bed like this, but she was going through something, and though it surprised him, he genuinely wanted to help. 

“You are not ugly.”

“Tell that to Hank.” The bitterness in her tone was almost tangible.

“Hank said that?” Erik thought he might have to have words with Hank in the morning.

Raven nodded.

“Hank is wrong. The real you is just as beautiful as any disguise you wear.”

“You say that, but what does it matter? Hank thinks I’m ugly, you don’t want me, and Sean is so desperate he’d want anything.”

It had been a long time since Erik had tried to comfort someone. There was a distinct chance he had never done that. So he didn’t know what to do as he sat on the bed, but he tried his best to tell Raven the truth. 

“Life isn’t about being wanted, Raven. You don’t need them to want you to be your true self. Putting on a mask to be attractive is no way to live.”

Raven narrowed her eyes. “It’s a way to not be alone.”

“You aren’t alone. You have all of us, and all of our mutant brothers and sisters. And I consider you a friend.” 

“Thanks.” Raven laughed once. “I’m sorry for…” She motioned to her body and shifted into a form wearing clothes.

“It’s all right.” Erik took a breath. He’d never really said this to anyone except Charles, but this felt like a time for truth. “It’s not that I don’t want you because you’re blue or because of who you are. I just don’t want people that way.”

“I thought you might be gay,” Raven said. “Now this is extra embarrassing.”

“I’m not gay,” Erik said with a soft laugh. “I don’t want anyone that way, of any gender.”

“Oh. Really?”

Erik raised an eyebrow. “Yes, really. Now if you wouldn’t mind…” He opened the door with his powers. “I’d like to get some sleep.”

As Raven left, he called after her, voice a warning, “And tell me if Hank says anything like that again.” He wasn’t going to let anyone make Raven feel ashamed of her mutation.

As it happened, he didn’t even have to look for Hank the next morning. He poked his head into the kitchen, looking slightly panicked, as Erik was making coffee.

“Have you seen Raven?” he asked. 

“No. I haven’t seen her since last night.” Erik looked Hank in the eyes as he poured himself a cup of coffee, but kept his voice light. “She seemed upset.” 

Hank grew noticeably more fidgety. 

“I, uh, may have, erm, said something to her? That didn’t go over well?” Hank was practically bouncing on his feet with nerves. “Are you sure you haven’t seen her? I wanted to apologize.”

The glare Erik gave him was deadly. “I haven’t seen her.”

“Oh. Okay.”

As Hank started to leave, Erik called after him. “We already have the humans to make us ashamed of ourselves. I won’t hear of a mutant making it easier for them.” 

***

“Did you and the professor break up or something?” Angel asked. She hovered several feet off the ground and was carefully aiming her spit at targets ranged across the yard, about half of which were melted. A reasonable amount of the grass was also destroyed. 

Erik looked up at her. “What?” 

“I dunno. You two have been different since you got back. Or was it just a one-night thing?”

“What makes that your business?” Erik crossed his arms. 

Angel shrugged and took aim at one of the closer targets. “It’s not. Just curious. You don’t have to talk if you don’t want.” She spat and hit the left half of the target, which sizzled and melted into a plastic puddle. 

And, well. Erik didn’t see much of a need to tell the member of the team he interacted with least about his personal life. But he also thought she was trying to connect with someone, and he hadn’t talked about it to anyone, so there wasn’t any harm. He levitated himself up to float next to Angel. “We were never together, you know.”

“Hm.”

“Have you ever wanted to be with someone but known it would end badly?”

Angel looked at him sideways. “I don’t do serious relationships. But if you love him, why not try?”

Erik brought three marbles out of his pocket and began spinning them a couple inches above his hand. “He and I… don’t want the same things.”

“Trust me, he wants you.” Angel pointed at a target across the yard. “I’m going to hit that one.”

_ That’s part of the problem _ , Erik thought. Aloud, he said “Charles isn’t fond of my attitude towards murder.”

“Sometimes people need to die.” Angel spat at the target, missing it by a few feet. She cursed. 

“I’m glad we agree.”

Angel turned to face him. Her wings fluttered behind her. “You have your ideals just as much as the Professor has his. That’s not what you’ve been weird about, but like I said, you don’t have to tell me. It’s your problem, not mine. But talk to him before whatever’s going on blows up and messes with the rest of us.”

Erik nodded and floated back to the ground.

“When we find Shaw, I’m going to kill him,” Erik said that night over his and Charles’s game of chess. “I’d appreciate it if you didn’t try to stop me.”

“I won’t help you with your revenge,” Charles sighed. 

Erik looked him in the eyes and moved his chess piece with his powers. “What would you suggest we do otherwise?”

“I simply don’t think focusing your life around the death of one man is productive, no matter what he did to you.”

Erik closed his eyes. This wasn’t just about him. He could still see Shaw pull that trigger, clear as day, see his mother falling lifeless to the ground. Hear the pride in Shaw’s voice after Erik’s outburst finally showed his powers. But it was more than that. Shaw was trying to end the world. 

“Erik, I’m sorry,” Charles began, clearly sensing the memories that were playing in Erik’s mind. 

“What other plan do you have? Do you propose to capture Shaw? What prison would hold him? You know he can’t be allowed to go free.”

Charles paused, eyes focused on the chessboard. “I don’t know,” he admitted. “But I don’t want to see you lose yourself to your anger.”

“I already have.” Normally, Erik hated being vulnerable, discussing things other than arguments in which he knew he was in the right. But he trusted Charles. “I spent so long hunting Nazis down, killing anyone who hurt my people. I was nothing more than a weapon for years. These last weeks have been the most human I’ve been in years, and I thank you for that, Charles. But this has to be done.”

Charles intently looked at the table for several moments, then nodded. “You’re right.”

“What?”

“I said you’re right. I may not like it, but killing Shaw is the best way to keep him from starting a nuclear war.”

“Oh.” Out of all the outcomes Erik had considered, Charles agreeing with him wasn’t something he’d ever thought would happen. “I’m glad you agree.”

“Speaking of things I was wrong about…” Charles began, and Erik immediately felt defensive. They’d been so busy with the team (and with arguing about Shaw and everything else) that they’d managed to avoid talking about the argument that started this in the first place. Playing chess with Charles at night was so calming, and, though Erik refused to admit it to himself, exactly what he wanted, and he’d almost been able to forget that Charles had wanted to sleep with him. Except he couldn’t forget, because he still liked Charles. A lot. 

Somehow, despite all that, he still had no idea where Charles was going with this. He’d been so focused on not having this conversation that he hadn’t thought about the ways it could go.

Neither, it seemed, had Charles. “I care for you, Erik. I don’t know what will happen when we face Shaw, or if you have decided you care about living after his death. But if you do, I’d like to be a part of it.”

“Charles, I wouldn’t just cut you out of my life,” Erik scoffed. He wasn’t one to grow attached easily, but somehow, this imposing old house and the mutants that lived in it had become home in a way nowhere had in many, many years. He couldn’t say what he was thinking, but judging from the smile on Charles’s face, he knew. 

“That’s good to hear. You should know, though, that I still like you very much, previous arguments notwithstanding.”

Erik opened his mouth to speak, something along the lines of  _ It may have been a month but my stance on sex has not changed _ , but Charles cut him off. “I don’t mean sexually. Although you are very attractive, but that’s beside the point.”

“I’d assumed one night stands were the extent of your interest in relationships.” This assumption had largely been based on Charles and Raven’s tales of Charles’s college years, which seemed to have consisted as much of drinking and sex as they did of actual studying. 

Charles turned bright red. “That may have been true, once. But I…” He trailed off. Erik didn’t need to be a telepath to know Charles was embarrassed. “It’s been very nice, having you here. Helping to train the kids together and playing chess. It’s all awfully domestic, and I’ve very much enjoyed being able to have that with you, even as a friend.”

_ Oh _ . “Yes, it has.”

“Really? You’re skilled at holding grudges, I rather assumed I’d fucked that up back in LA.”

Erik took a breath. He was no good at apologizing; he wasn’t sure he’d ever genuinely apologized to someone. “I may have overreacted. It’s unpleasant having to explain myself, because it makes me feel as though I am somehow wrong, but I understand that wasn’t your intention. I forgave you a long time ago.”

Charles’s face lit up. “Did… did you want to try, then? Or, I suppose the proper question is ‘will you go out with me?’”

“Charles, you do understand this isn’t a ‘waiting for marriage’ thing, right?”

“Yes. I really like you, Erik. And that means you as you are.”

Erik smiled. He’d found himself doing that more and more around Charles. 

“How do you feel about kissing?” Charles asked, trying his hardest to seem innocuous. 

As Erik looked at Charles, perched on the edge of his chair in the study, hair rumpled and looking so happy, he thought kissing sounded amazing. 

The chessboard floated itself off the table between them as Erik leaned over and kissed Charles. Erik found himself pulled into the web of Charles’s mind, enmeshed in all of his hope and joy, and thought he could get used to this. 

**Author's Note:**

> ... and then the beach divorce doesn't happen and charles and erik moderate each other's radical politics and open the school together and are the leaders mutants deserve
> 
> comments/kudos make my day!!!
> 
> Update 6/4: there is now [ a sequel ](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24526324) to this fic!! If you're interested in post-Cuba found family, go check it out!


End file.
